Think of porn addicts and you probably conjure up an image of a single man, whiling away the lonely hours in his room with just a laptop and a massive box of tissues for company.

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But porn addiction affects both men and women, ten per cent of adults admit to having an internet sex addiction and a third of them are female, The Sun reports.

Jessie Maegan was one of those women. The 29-year-old from Totnes, Devon says she spent hours searching through porn sites.

Wayne Perry

She told The Sun:

At the height of my addiction I’d spend hours alone, looking at sites such as Pornhub and RedTube. I started paying for the exclusive content because by then I felt like I had seen it all.

I moved on to group stuff with S&M, and the more I saw, the more I wanted — the edgier the better. I’d lose track of time, sometimes not getting to bed until 4am. It’s amazing to think that some days I’d watch over eight hours of porn.

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I’d watch it on my phone in the park at lunchtimes and on my breaks from work. I’d be counting down the minutes until I could finish my shift and get home to watch more.

As a teen I’d never masturbated but after seeing women in the films I could pleasure myself for hours. In public I still had to get my fix and would take the risk.

Jessie amassed £4,000 of debt from paying for the exclusive downloads, and could barely afford her rent. It got to the point where she stopped eating properly and had no friends. But the turning point for her was when she was fired for falling asleep at her desk, this prompted her to seek help for her addiction.

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She paid £200 for a confidential online addiction service, helpaddictions.org. After two months Jessie had managed to completely cut porn out of her life. She now has a new job in a bar and says the thought of watching porn makes her feel physically sick.

A recent study has shown that porn addicts and alcoholics get the same buzz when they get their fix, supporting the idea that addiction is no different to a chemical or substance dependence.